


Starlight Silhouette

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e06 Ascension, Episode: s02e08 One Breath, F/M, Plot What Plot, Romance, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-26
Updated: 2005-01-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 04:40:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14441574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: Mulder's thoughts while Scully is missing





	Starlight Silhouette

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

TITLE: Starlight Silhouette 

AUTHOR: Wylfcynne 

E-MAIL ADDRESS: 

SPOILERS: One Breath 

**RATING: NC-17**

CLASSIFICATION: post-ep for Ascension, MA MSR SMUTFIC FirstTime, written for  
Fandomonium's FirstTime Challenge. 

SUMMARY: would be superfluous, wouldn't it? 

DISCLAIMER: They certainly aren't mine; if they were, they'd be having more fun, and I wouldn't have to save up for vacations! Mulder, Scully, Skinner and the rest belong to FOX Networks and 1013; I'm just borrowing them for a little fun and games...I promise I'll bring them back on time and unharmed... and they won't remember a thing... 

FEEDBACK: The Wylf howls at the moon for feedback... 

DEDICATION: Overall, all my X Files work is dedicated to my writing partner, Ravenwald, without whom I would still be doing all this using a ballpoint pen, who introduced me to fandom on the ?Net, and awakened the Muse, who had been sleeping for a VERY long time. This piece is for all the wonderful friends at Fandomonium for the opportunity and at the Saturday Night Chat for the encouragement. 

Starlight Silhouette by Wylfcynne 

Special Agent Fox Mulder stood on the very patch of grass where his partner had last been seen on earth. His face was lifted to the skies over Skyland Mountain as if seeking for some sight of her among the stars. But there was nothing there but the empty coldness of space. 

Starlight shimmered on his skin, soft as her touch, and he closed his eyes against that memory. It invaded, tore away his grief and bared his guilt. His partner, the woman he loved above all others, had been torn from him just as his sister had been all those years ago, leaving him behind, desolate and abandoned. Just like his sister, Scully had been taken, screaming his name and begging for his help, into the light, leaving him in darkness alone. 

There was no one to mourn with him now, just as there had been no one before: just as his parents had blamed him, somehow, for Samantha's disappearance, so Margaret Scully blamed him for Dana's abduction. Oh, Margaret had better manners than Teena: she would never tell him that she blamed him; after all, he was not her son, to be punished with impunity. But he could see it in Margaret's eyes when he saw her: grief and terror that warred with the necessity of blaming him while pretending not to do so because she knew he was the only person actually looking for her daughter. 

He had tried to explain to Margaret that, while there was an open case file, with the telltale red-and-white striped tape that meant it was an X File, that did not mean that any substantive investigation was being done. There were no leads, no clues, no informants, no trace evidence that did not lead down dead ends. There was nothing to follow, no where to look. 

He shuddered, chilled by the night air. 

* * *

He shuddered, chilled, and her fingers trailed along his jaw, turned his face so that his eyes met hers. They were sitting on his couch; he had let her in and she had led him here without saying so much as 'Hello.' He had no idea why she had come to see him so late at night. 

"What are you doing?" he breathed, shocked voiceless. 

Scully lifted her other hand to cradle his face, to keep him from turning away. "Mulder, one thing that losing the X Files has made very clear to me: the work is just, the work is important and worth doing... but it is only work, and if it is set out of my reach, I can find other work just as valid. You, however, are my life and I cannot set you aside. Without you, all work is meaningless, and my life is empty." 

He was stunned . He had no idea how to respond, but he was still coherent enough to realize that response was an absolute necessity. 

"I...I don't know what to say, Scully," he admitted, his voice still useless and the words little more than a whisper. "No one has ever said such words to me. I'm... I'm stupefied." 

"And I always thought you were the eloquent half of this partnership." Her smile was tender. 

He tried to smile but knew it was a dismal failure. "We aren't partners, anymore." 

"The word has multiple applications, Mulder," she said quietly. "At the FBI, we are no longer partners. In our private lives we choose with whom we will spend our lives." 

He looked a little closer and saw tears shining in her eyes. He lifted his hand to palm her jaw and cautiously touched her lashes with the edge of his thumb, felt the tiny swirl of wetness against his skin. 

"Oh, my God!" Realization struck him as hard as if he had stepped on a rake. "Do you... Does this mean you love me? Is that possible?" 

She blinked back the tears. "Yes," she said simply. 

"How...?!" 

She chuckled softly. "You would know that better than I; you studied the mind and how we think. I don't want to discuss the biochemistry..." 

He had to laugh, but it faded swiftly as he contemplated the enormity of the gift she had given. 

"Mulder...?" Her confidence seemed fled; there was timidity in her words that frightened him: she was never timid. 

"What's the matter?" 

"You... you haven't answered me." 

Suddenly it was all clear to him. "Scully, I have adored you since you came into my hotel room in Bellefleur and demonstrated that you trusted me with that kind of vulnerability. I knew I had to have you in my life somehow... but I don't think I realized it was love until just now. I never had a referent for that word before; not a personal one." 

Scully frowned. "You've had relationships in the past; I've met Phoebe Green, remember?" 

Now he was confused again. "What's she got to do with this?" 

"We were discussing love...?" she prompted him. 

"I never loved her." He was puzzled; how had that not been clear to Scully? 

"You were lovers for a long time." 

"We had a sexual relationship. She used me; I allowed it for a while until I felt my humanity crumbling and I fled. I thought you knew this..." 

"How would I know it, Mulder?" she asked gently. "You almost never talk about yourself." 

"I didn't want to bore you... or horrify you." He looked away. "I'm sorry. That sounds so melodramatic..." 

"All I need from you is the truth, Mulder. Do you love me?" 

He turned back, met her eyes with his. "Yes." 

She smiled, and he felt as if the dawn was brightening in his soul. She leaned forward to kiss him and he waited for her, paralyzed as a bird is by a snake. At the first touch of her lips, he sighed. Somehow the touch made the words real. 

The kiss was brief, chaste; she pulled back to study his face. He reached up and laced his fingers into her hair, holding her entire skull cradled between his palms. This time he leaned in toward her, and it was her turn to wait, frozen with anticipation. 

This kiss was neither brief nor chaste: at the first touch of his lips she gasped and opened her mouth, sucking him inside. When her body melted against his and her arms went under his shirt to stroke against his ribs, he shuddered as his blood supply shifted south. 

When they broke for air, she studied him intently. "I need you in my life, Mulder. In all ways, in all things." 

"Stay here, then, and we'll experiment," he teased. "What would you like us to consider first?" 

She grinned at him and he could not help but grin back. 

"Hmm... How many times you can make me  
scream?" 

A frisson of arousal went through him, leaving him cold at the extremities; too much of his blood supply was needed elsewhere. "I don't have a bed," he warned her. 

"I've had fantasies of you taking me on this couch ever since the first time I saw it." 

He took a deep breath and paused briefly to shove his inner caveman back under some kind of control. "Now? Right now?" 

She cocked her head at him. "Got something you'd rather do? Appointments with informants? SETI research to read? Bigfoot to chase...?" 

"I'm afraid that if I start now I'll never be able to stop..." 

Her grin widened. "You say that like it's a bad thing...!" It was her turn to tease. She reached down, grabbed the hem of her tee shirt and pulled it off over her head, baring her breasts to his stunned gaze. She let the tee shirt fall but left her hands raised. "Take me, Mulder. I'm all yours." 

He grabbed her, pulled her close, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hard. His hands slid down her body, found the weird little metal thing that held her skirt closed, and opened it, pushing the skirt away. When he went for her underwear he gasped and pulled out of the kiss. 

"No panties?!" He was shocked. 

"You're the one who's overdressed," she growled. 

He studied her for a moment, noting flushed skin, dilated eyes and panting breath, and realized that he had never seen a woman so beautiful. He said so while he was pulling off his own shirt and toeing off his socks. When he pulled his sweatpants down and off he heard her gasp as he kicked them aside. 

"What?" 

"I've seen you without clothing before, Mulder," she admitted shakily. "But that's been in hospital settings, when you weren't at your best. I'm... I'm impressed!" 

He grinned a crooked grin, a little embarrassed as well as flattered. "That's good, 'cause that's all I've got. You'll have to settle for it." 

She laid back on the couch, the arm across her shoulder blades, and spread her legs. "I'm willing..." 

He groaned as the scent of her arousal wafted up to him. He moved over her, looked down on the pale skin and freckles of her Gaelic heritage and decided the contrast against the black leather couch was more erotic than he would have imagined. He dipped his head and kissed her mouth again, then started tasting more of her skin. Jawline, neck and shoulders got his attention, and he paused a considerable time to offer each breast the dedication it deserved. When she was writhing beneath him, moaning, he settled into the cradle of her hips. 

At the first touch, her back arched. As he sank inside her she moaned. "God, you feel like a tree trunk... so big... so hard... " Her arms and legs came up and wrapped themselves around him; her fingers dug into his back. When he was totally sheathed in her heat, he shuddered once at the thought... and she exploded beneath him. All he could do was hang on until she sagged, panting. 

"Damn, girl...!" 

Breathless, she glared at him. "It's been a long time. Do that again." 

"Do what again?" 

"Whatever it was you did that set me off!" 

"I just moved a little..." he thrust shallowly, and felt her shudder. "I think you'll be a few minutes recovering from that one." 

She Kegeled him and he shuddered... and she went off again. 

This time he was panting with strain when she could focus on him again. "You'll have to count, Scully," he told her. "I plan on losing track." He started moving against her experimentally, and he started slowly, knowing she had to be hypersensitized. She started moaning almost at once and her voice made him move faster. 

He really did lose count; all he knew for sure was that it was not long at all before he lost all control and came himself, hard and energetically, pumping into her with abandon and then collapsing on top of her, so out of breath he could not focus his eyes. 

When he thought he had enough breath back to talk, he looked up toward her face. She was smiling back at him. 

"Pretty good?" 

"Wonderful. Shower?" 

"Go ahead," he murmured, putting his head back down on her belly. "I need a nap..." 

* * *

"Sir, the embryo is ready for transfer. Will this one be tanked or do you have a host mother picked out?" 

His superior sighed happily, though Conal Slatterey knew the old man was desperately wishing for a cigarette though even he could not smoke here in this laboratory. 

"There's a host mother ready in Implantation 3, Slatterey" he replied. 

"Very well, sir," he nodded. "This is always rough on the donors," he commented unnecessarily as he watched his team work. "Will this one be returned or euthanized?" 

"Returned," he said shortly. "But make sure she doesn't live long after that! We can't have her talking about this!" 

Slatterey glanced at the girl's terrified face: the pretty redhead was wide awake, though the paralytic worked well enough and she could neither move nor scream. He was equally sure she had heard everything they had said, which he thought was unconscionably cruel. He would have preferred to euthanize her here as soon as they were finished, but his superior always had reasons for his orders. 

"The branched DNA should handle that, sir. She's an unmodified normal." 

"Make sure it does," came the growl. "I'll be with Miss Fowley in Imp 3." 

"Yes, sir. The embryo will be there in a few moments, ready for implantation." 

* * *

Mulder woke up abruptly, confused. He was cold and damp, stiff and uncomfortable... He had fallen asleep in the grass on Skyland Mountain. He had been dreaming... but it was all in the past. One wonderful night on his couch... and the next morning Duane Barry had been inserted into their lives and everything had fallen apart into misery, bereavement and soul- killing solitude. 

He dragged himself up until he could sit on the grass, and then lowered his head till his forehead rested on his knees. He supposed he should go back... but go back to what? Samantha was gone, Scully was gone, the X Files were gone... and he was helpless. 

Without consciously willing it, his right hand drew his Sig out of the holster. He contemplated the black steel of it for several minutes. It would certainly put a crimp in the plans of whoever ?or Whoever? was so intent on torturing him. It would mean no one would continue the search for Samantha or Scully... but he was pretty sure that was a futile hope, anyway. He had been searching more than half his life for his sister and he had never even found a clue, much less come close to finding her. Could he do that all again for Scully? Could he stand another twenty years of that futility? 

"No. No." He lifted the weapon. 

"Zzzzing..." 

The sound of his phone shocked him. He grabbed it. "Mulder." 

"Where are you, Mulder?" Skinner growled in his ear. "Your partner's been found!" 

"What?" He could not quite grasp the man's words. "What?!" 

"Scully's been found, alive. She's in ICU at GUMC. Get down here." 

"Yes, sir!" 

* * *

  
  


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